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Wage formation in Sweden has been decentralized, and the introduction of individual performance‐based pay has increased employer discretion. This article explores practices of local‐level wage determination and argues that existing analyses still have too much focus on the formal (regulatory) institutions to explain what that is going on under the surface. Drawing on interviews with HR, managers, employees and union representatives from both public and private sector organizations, the study concludes that individual and differentiated wage‐setting is delimited locally by small budgets and the actors' cultural–cognitive and normative expectations. Even though there have been radical changes in collective agreements and policies, we find strong elements of path dependency in local wage determination practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of performance-based and variable pay systems has affected expectations on employee contributions and remuneration, which have become increasingly personalized and individualized. Based on a theoretical valuation studies approach, this study of performance-based pay systems in Sweden shows that performance appraisals are (e)valuations of employees' yearly performance in which they are prized and (ap)praised at the same time. Through a document analysis of performance criteria from four organizations, the study analyzes how values expressed refer to Boltanski and Thévenot's six orders of worth. The analysis resulted in a theoretical construction of a joint ideal of Employees of Greatness, against which employees are measured and remunerated. The existence of the ideal of employee greatness is explained by the increasing congruence of organizational ideals in private and public sectors, as principles from emotional and cognitive forms of capitalist organization are superimposed on traditional industrial capitalist organizational ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]